1634: The Baltic War (72 page)

"Months?
I'd had the impression all along that you wanted me to hasten the process, Pieter."

The artist pursed his lips. "Well . . . not exactly. I simply felt you were overly concerned with the reaction of the court in Madrid. Which—I will be blunt here, Your Highness—is going to be a furious one, no matter when you make public the formal decision. And would have been, at any time, and under any conditions. The count-duke of Olivares is probably the most flexible of that lot, but that's not saying much."

The Spanish prince smiled. "About like saying that oak is a bit less rigid than steel, yes. I grant you that. But I still don't understand why you think we should keep delaying for several more months."

Rubens wagged his hand, back and forth. "I propose to delay only
some
things, Your Highness. You should propose an immediate and full cessation of hostilities. A cease-fire on all fronts. And when I say 'immediately,' I mean within the hour. By tomorrow morning, from what Rebecca Abrabanel told me yesterday evening, the
Achates
and its accompanying ships will arrive in Amsterdam. In fact, they've already entered the Zuider Zee. They could be here sometime tonight, from what she says, except that her husband is deliberately delaying their progress."

He gave the prince a quick glance. "The reason for which, I trust, is obvious."

Don Fernando scowled. "Obvious indeed. The ruthless bastard wants to sail into the harbor in broad daylight, just to rub salt into the wounds."

"Only if the wounds are still open, Your Highness. Yes, he's ruthless, but he's not actually a bastard. Had he chosen to, he could have left you no way to avoid the public humiliation."

"Well . . . true enough." For a moment, the young and bold prince surfaced. "Are you sure—I mean, we've had no direct reports—"

"Please, Your Highness. No direct reports? I remind you that you spoke yourself—just yesterday—to our ambassador in Copenhagen, when you crossed into Amsterdam under flag of truce. Or do you think American technical wizardry allows them to mimic voices over the radio?"

"Ha! The old donkey's voice, maybe. But not his irritating mannerisms, which I remember from when I was a boy. But I wasn't referring to that, Pieter. I don't doubt one of their ironclads could ruin our fleet blockading Amsterdam—although I will remind you that the Danes did manage to sink one of them. But Stearns does not have an ironclad at his disposal. He only has . . . well . . ."

Don Fernando's voice trailed off, as the young and impetuous prince sank below the surface again, replaced by the canny scion of Europe's canniest royal family. "Well, fine. One of those paddle-wheeled things, that seem to be as dangerous to ships as the ironclads, if not to heavy fortifications. I grant you that."

"I'll add into the bargain that Stearns apparently sailed right up the Thames to get his people out, the English Navy be damned. And I'll also add that while, yes, the Danes managed to completely destroy one of the USE's ships and even disable one of the ironclads, they only did so because of the recklessness of a Danish prince who was
not
the heir to the throne. I trust . . ."

"Not likely!" the cardinal-infante barked, almost laughing. "No, I'm afraid my reckless days are now behind me. And at the tender age of twenty-three! Is there no justice?"

"Not for princes, not in these times," came the blunt reply. "You need to send that proposal for a cease-fire within the hour, Your Highness."

Don Fernando didn't hesitate for more than a second or two. "Yes, you're right. Done. But why postpone the rest for so long?"

Rubens went back to his hand-wagging. "Not
everything
works in the Swede's favor now, Your Highness. To start with, that daring French raid on their oil works probably means that their mechanical war devices won't have fuel much longer. Not for a while, at least. And without them, assaulting your works here in the Low Countries will be a costly business. If it could even succeed at all, for that matter. Gustav Adolf has other enemies, you know. He can't amass his entire army against you. Beyond that . . ."

The artist and diplomat paused for a moment, his eyes become slightly unfocused. "Beyond that, there's the more general problem he faces. He's just swallowed an enormous meal, you know—or is about to, I should say—and will need time to digest it."

"That Union of Kalmar business?"

"Yes. Scandinavia hasn't been effectively unified since the days of Queen Margaretha, back in the fourteenth century—and that didn't last very long. Norsemen are every bit as disputatious as Germans, you know. And now Gustav Adolf proposes to do it again, only this time effectively."

"Not likely!"

Rubens shrugged. "Not easily, for sure. Which means he'll be preoccupied with that business for some time. Months, certainly, until sometime in the autumn. The same months I recommend that you delay any final political settlement. Just leave the cease-fire in place, and bide your time."

"But for what reasons, Pieter? You just pointed out yourself that my older brother and his court are going to imitate a volcano, no matter when I move. So why wait?"

"To be honest, Your Highness, I don't have a clear answer to that. It's just a matter of my . . . diplomatic and political instincts, you could call it. Once the hostilities end—and given that no one is in position to threaten you any time soon—I simply think it's to your advantage to wait. If I had to give you a more precise answer, let me just say that a period of waiting will allow all parties involved to . . . 'warm up to each other,' is the way I think our nurse Anne Jefferson would put it. The same nurse—call her doctor, now, rather—whom you will immediately invite to come openly into our cities and towns to the south, to oversee medical and sanitary projects. Starting with Brussels."

Don Fernando winced. "If I let her come—openly, as you say—there will be no way to prevent Richter from coming either. Openly or not."

"Then make that invitation open also, Your Highness—since you can't prevent her from coming, anyway."

The prince's eyes almost bulged. "You
can't
be serious."

"Yes, I am. Be realistic, Your Highness. Sooner or later, you will have to deal with the Committees of Correspondence throughout a united Netherlands. That being the case, better to do it sooner and do it yourself—while you still have the chance to negotiate the terms of the forthcoming disputes."

"Ha! You schemer!" Don Fernando gave Rubens a jeering little smile. "And, by the same token, establish—they call it the 'ground rules,' I think—whereby that fledgling committee of yours and Scaglia's can join the dispute."

"Well. Yes. Better that than what they call a 'free-for-all.' A chaotic melee with no rules of any sort."

The young prince thought about it for a minute or so. Then, sighing a bit, he shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose you're right. New times, new methods. But—!"

He held up an admonishing finger. "I leave it to you—you, Pieter, not me!—to explain to my aunt how it comes to be that the troll-woman Richter has free passage in Brussels."

Rubens tugged at his beard. "Um. Her Grace is still a bit furious over that business, isn't she? Well, perhaps the archduchess Isabella and the agitator Gretchen Richter will warm up to each other, given time." After a moment, he added: "A very great deal of time, of course."

Besançon,
The Franche-Comté

"So we have more time, then, in other words," said Friedrich Kanoffski von Langendorff. He looked around the table at the other members of
Der Kloster
whom Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar had summoned to the salon in the town's Hotel de Ville, before his gaze returned to their commander.

"That's my assessment," said Bernhard. "Judging from the tone of his note that arrived this morning, Cardinal Richelieu is furious with me. But he maintained the veneer of civility, and—formally—accepts my explanation that recent troop movements on the part of General Horn in Swabia made it impossible for me to send any significant forces as far north as Holstein."

The duke of Saxe-Weimar bestowed a cold grin on his assembled subordinates. "What choice does he have, really, after that catastrophe at Ahrensbök? True, we betrayed him—but we don't pose a direct threat, either. What's a small little stab in the back, compared to the fangs and talons of Monsieur Gaston, rising like a great bear in front of him?"

After the laughter died down, Bernhard shook his head. "No, we'll simply continue as before. Gather our strength, but keep our final goals obscure. Time works entirely on our side, for the next few months. Perhaps as much as a year, or even two."

He held up his hand, thumb and fingers widely spread. Then, closed down the thumb with the fingers of his other hand. "The Swede will be preoccupied with absorbing Denmark, and then come next year he'll turn his attention to Saxony and Brandenburg. That's bound to bring in the Austrians and the Poles, of course. His General Horn will be a nuisance, but Horn on his own can't threaten us."

The forefinger was closed. "Neither can Maximilian of Bavaria, without Austrian support, and the Austrians will most likely be preoccupied elsewhere."

Now, the middle finger. "Within a year, France may start dissolving into civil war. Even if Richelieu manages to prevent that, he'll be far too busy to pay much attention to us."

He closed the last two fingers. "That leaves the Spaniards and their possessions in Italy. Hard to know, yet, exactly how that situation will unfold. But the way things are looking in the Netherlands, more and more, I think the Spanish crown will also have bigger issues to deal with than what happens to a part of their Spanish Road—which they haven't been able to use in years, anyway."

He leaned back in his chair. "Patience, gentlemen. All we have to do now is keep attending properly to details. Such as—"

The cold grin returned. "Such as the letter I will write this evening, to my old friend Jean-Baptiste Budes, comte de Guébriant, now held in groaning captivity. Making clear to him—delicately, of course—that my offer of employment still stands."

A stay in heaven, Eddie Cantrell discovered, lasts for two and a half days. On the evening of the third day, the Devil came to collect the bill—seeing as how Eddie had tried to cheat and get to heaven before he was actually dead.

An oversight which could easily be remedied, of course.

The soldiers who tried to clamber into the submarine eventually realized they'd have to leave their halberds behind. By then, Anne Cathrine was in full protest mode—they paid that no attention at all—and Eddie knew the jig was up.

So, he surrendered without a struggle.

Once he was hauled out of the submarine, with Anne Cathrine being hauled only a bit more gently behind him, he found himself standing face to face with King Christian IV.

The father in question. Whose temper, alas, showed no trace of subsidence. Not the least, tiniest, littlest bit.

"So!" bellowed the Danish monarch. As big as he was, he seemed to loom over Eddie like a mountain. Or a troll king.

Christian stomped over to the submarine. He was too fat to get in, but he did manage to stick his head in far enough to examine the interior.

"So!" he bellowed again, his voice sounding like it came from an echo chamber.

He came back out and gave Eddie a glare that dwarfed any glare in Eddie's experience. Admiral Simpson's glare, which he'd once thought ferocious, was like a candle to an arc light.

"So!" He pointed a rigid finger at Eddie. "Arrest him!"

That seemed a pointless sort of thing to say. Eddie already had two soldiers holding him by the arms, with two more prodding his back with halberd blades.

"Papà!" wailed Anne Cathrine. "You can't do this!"

"Watch me!"

Copenhagen
June 1634

"How are the mighty fallen," grumbled Colonel Jesse Wood, taking off his leather jacket and hanging it on a hook in the shed-in-all-but-name that had been jury-rigged as the new "Command Headquarters" of the brand spanking new Union of Kalmar's brand spanking new first and only airfield, just outside Copenhagen. "Hi, Frank. What are you doing here?"

Sitting in a chair that was at least six degrees of separation from anything that belonged on an air field and would have cost a small fortune up-time—lounging in it luxuriously, rather—General Frank Jackson grinned up at him.

"Still grousing, huh? What's the matter, Jesse? Why does it offend your sensibilities to have the air force turned into a passenger service? Hell, I thought you were just a lowly trash-hauler up-time."

"Please. I flew a
tanker.
Big, big difference—and never mind what any stupid fighter pilot jock says."

He looked around and, seeing no alternative, sat in another chair that was every bit as absurd. "Where did they get these damn things, anyway? Every time I sit in one of them I expect a museum guard to start shouting at me."

Frank's cheerful grin seemed fixed in place. "Frederiksborg Palace, where else? You know how much King Christian loves this airfield. I think Gustav Adolf's offer to build it for him right away is what really turned the tide and finally reconciled him to the Union of Kalmar. Well, between that and agreeing to betroth Princess Kristina to Prince Ulrik. You're in the air most of the time, so you probably aren't aware of it, but Christian comes out here bright and early at least every third morning, all the way from the palace in Copenhagen. How he manages that, with the hangovers he must have, is a mystery to me. Hollow leg is one thing. That guy's got a quasi-dimensional leg, from what I can tell."

Frank half-rose from the chair, supporting himself with his left hand on one of the armrests, and pointed out the window with the other. More precisely, out of the three panes in the huge window that weren't stained glass. Like the chairs, the window was a preposterous thing to have in such a ramshackle and hastily constructed edifice.

"I hate to be the one to break the news to you, Jesse, but they've already started breaking the ground out there. Just past the perimeter fence."

"Breaking the ground? For what?"

"What do you think? Christian's new palace. He says it'll be a small one, though. A 'flying cottage,' he calls it."

Jesse rolled his eyes. "God help us. I've already had to give him four joyrides."

"Piker. He's pretty well adopted Woody. Who's given him at least a dozen joyrides—and is now trying to figure out how to fend off the increasingly royal insistence that we teach Christian how to fly."

Jesse didn't roll his eyes, this time. He closed them tightly shut, the way a man does when he's feeling intense pain. "God help us, again."

"He's pretty well coordinated, actually."

"Yeah, I know. So what? He's also half-drunk most of the time."

By the time he reopened his eyes, Frank was back to lounging in his chair. "But you never answered my question. Why are
you
here, Frank? Puh-leese don't tell me you want a joyride, too. I just got finished having to listen to a seven-year-old girl squealing with delight for hours."

Frank chuckled. "Yeah, I saw. What a mob, huh?"

He was referring to the huge crowd that had been at the airfield to greet Princess Kristina and her two companions when they landed. The emperor himself had been at the center of it, along with King Christian, surrounded by umpteen officials, officers and courtiers. Prince Ulrik had been there also, of course, to greet his new seven-year-old fiancée. Or rather, fiancée to be, since the betrothal wouldn't be official until the formal ceremony in a few days. But, by now, the news had even spread through most of the United States of Europe, much less Denmark. There'd been an even bigger crowd at the airfield in Magdeburg to cheer the princess on her way—although that one had mostly been made up of commoners.

Lady Ulrike and Caroline Platzer had spent the entire flight from Magdeburg in absolute silence, clutching anything available to clutch with knuckle-whitening intensity. Lady Ulrike had been terrified because it was the first time she'd ever flown. Caroline Platzer had been even more terrified because she'd flown many times—and therefore knew perfectly well how far removed Jesse's Gustav was from anything an up-time commercial airline company would have allowed to even taxi onto a landing strip. They wouldn't have trusted the damn thing to tow luggage carts to the ramps, for that matter.

Kristina had just been ecstatic. It was her first time flying, too, and so what? Fifteen minutes after they got into the air, she'd started pestering Jesse to teach her how to fly.

The odd thing was, he might very well wind up doing so. When the girl got bigger, of course. But in her case, the thought only caused him to wince a bit. The truth was—all you had to do was watch her on a horse—Kristina had the physical skills to do it. God knows, she had the attitude. The biggest problem would be to keep her from trying fancy acrobatics and dive-bombing routines the first time she went up behind the controls.

"To answer your question," said Frank, "I'm here on a private mission from our beloved prime minister. Things are still kinda dicey for Eddie Cantrell, and Mike wants to know if—in a real pinch—you could be ready to fly the scapegrace out of here on a moment's notice. 'Moment's notice' as in, just before the headsman's axe comes down. That's assuming Mike can figure out a way to get him out of the palace, but he's pretty sure he can manage that. Seeing as he sent for the experts. It's being kept very quiet, of course, but Harry Lefferts and his crew got here two days ago on a ship they swindled somebody out of. Mike's prepared to go to the mat on this one, if he really has no choice."

Jesse sighed. "Christ on a crutch. They still have the poor kid locked up?"

Frank shrugged. "Yeah, insofar as you can call being under house arrest in a room—suite, more like—in Rosenborg Castle 'locked up.' It ain't exactly a barren cell in Marion County jail. Even the plumbing's probably better."

"Still, it seems excessive as all hell. I mean, the kid's not charged with anything that up-time would have—"

Frank grin's was gone by now, and he interrupted Jesse forcefully. "We aren't up-time, Jesse, if you hadn't noticed—and the girl involved is royalty. You may not be aware of it, but Christian IV is actually considered a very tolerant monarch in the here and now. Even something of a wimp, when it comes to family stuff like this. The reason people think that is because he only had his second wife Kirsten Munk—she's the girl's mother, if you didn't know—imprisoned when she was suspected of adultery. Instead of having her head cut off on the grounds of treason. Which is what Henry VIII did—twice—not all that long ago."

Jesse made a face. "Seventeenth fucking century. I forget, sometimes."

"Yeah, we all do. But there it is. Mike thinks—
thinks,
mind you, he's not positive—that Christian's mainly insisting on the full royal treatment as part of all the bargaining maneuvers. To put it another way, he's not actually as outraged as he claims to be. But . . ."

"Yeah, but. Who knows?—and seventeenth-century 'bargaining' is every bit as much of a contact sport as everything political is in this day and age. It can get really rough."

Frank nodded. "Yep, sure can. As Christian IV proved when he agreed to let Eddie go in return for Prince Ulrik—and then dragged out the process until the emperor arrived, so he could demand that Gustav Adolf have him arrested. Drunk or sober, he ain't no dummy. He needed Gustav Adolf here to squelch the admiral, who was making loud noises by then about reducing the rest of Copenhagen to rubble if his lieutenant wasn't goddamit produced on his flagship right fucking now. Even then, Gustav had to do some truly imperial squelching before the admiral shut up."

There was silence for a time, as two men engaged in that ancient ritual whereby another man was finally allowed into their private comradeship.

"Simpson's okay," Jesse declared.

"Yeah, he is," Frank concurred.

After a moment, Jesse said, "I can get Eddie out of here. Now that all the fricking passengers have been shuttled to Copenhagen in time for the big shindig—have they come up with a name for it yet, by the way?—I've got a legitimate excuse to stick around for a while, instead of spending every waking hour in a cockpit."

He waved his hand toward the airfield beyond the closed door. "All of the Gustavs have to have those stupid passenger benches taken out and get re-fitted as fighting planes. Am I the only one who remembers that there's still a war going on? Supposed to be, anyway. Last I heard, the only ones who'd agreed to a cease-fire are the Spaniards—and then, only the ones under the cardinal-infante's command."

"Oquendo's agreed to it also," Frank said. "We just got the word yesterday. It seems the good admiral has decided his commission requires him to obey the commander of all Spanish forces in the Netherlands, and to hell with what Madrid says." Frank chuckled. "Of course, the count-duke of Olivares and the king of Spain himself aren't likely to agree, but nobody in this day and age can lawyer like Spanish hidalgos. Especially when the hidalgo in question has his fleet anchored in the Zuider Zee and the rest of the Spanish navy can't get to him without fighting their way through a big chunk of the USE's navy."

Jesse cocked an eyebrow. "The
Achates
is hardly what I'd call a 'big chunk.' "

Frank shook his head, looking smug. "You're way behind the curve, Jesse. Too much time spent staring through a windscreen, the last couple of weeks. Gustav Adolf ordered Commodore Henderson to take his flotilla into the Zuider Zee. There are now
six
of those paddle wheelers guarding Amsterdam—each and every one of which has a dozen sixty-eight pound carronades loaded with explosive shells, just in case anyone gets any screwy ideas."

He settled into his chair, very comfortably. "No, at least for the time being, Don Fernando and Don Antonio de Oquendo can thumb their noses at the Spanish crown around the clock, if they want to. As for the rest . . ."

He waved a hand, dismissively. "The Danes are out of it, obviously. The English are too, for all practical purposes. They never had much in the way of land forces involved in the war, and after the wreckage the
Achates
left in the Thames estuary it's not likely even that dimwit Charles I is going to order his navy into action. That leaves the French, who are
asking
for a cease-fire. But Gustav Adolf is ignoring their ambassador. He won't agree to it until his troops finish gobbling up as much territory as he figures he can digest. All those dinky little principalities in northwest Germany and what you and I would have called northeast France in the old days are falling like tenpins to Gustav's forces. Hesse-Kassel's done some nibbling of his own too. With the emperor's agreement, of course. Most of it, anyway—and a little after the fact, in some cases. But there's been hardly any fighting at all."

Jesse frowned. "I'd think—"

"You aren't a French cardinal staring at a civil war in the making, Jesse. The only reliable, intact and powerful force Richelieu has at his disposal is Turenne and his cavalry. And guess where they are, now? We just got word about that yesterday, too."

Jesse thought for a moment, and then chuckled himself. "Billeted in the Louvre, I imagine."

"You got it in one. Richelieu needs Turenne to keep the lid on Paris, so he's not about to send him off to fight us. Turenne's got the only French army worth talking about, at the moment, if you don't count Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar—and Mike thinks it's not all that clear how much Richelieu can count on Bernhard these days. The key thing, though, is that those dangerous damn Sharps breechloaders of Turenne's are out of it for while. So, Gustav Adolf figures now is a good time to let his eager commanders on the ground bring him a lot of little Floridas."

"Floridas?"

"Never mind. Inside joke, I'll explain it to you later. I heard it from Torstensson."

Frank planted his hands on the armrests and heaved himself to his feet, grimacing as if he were engaged in one of the labors of Hercules. "Damn, I love these chairs. Gotta see if I can wheedle the Danes into giving us a couple for army headquarters. Which—you got it rough, flyboy, you surely do—the rotten bastards made us put in what's left of Copenhagen Castle. Stumble over the rubble on your way in, which is probably just as well 'cause it takes your mind off the stench coming from the harbor."

Once erect, he ambled toward the door. "Okay, I'll tell Mike you're a go if we need a fast horse out of Copenhagen for Eddie."

"So, what did you think of him?" asked Caroline, once they were settled in their chambers in Rosenborg Castle.

Princess Kristina frowned. "I don't know yet. He's very quiet. I'm not sure I like that. And I'm still angry at him. He blew up one of our ships! Almost blew up another!"

"Which took a great deal of courage."

Kristina rubbed her nose. "Well. Okay. Still."

"He's good-looking, you know, in a quiet sort of way," chipped in Lady Ulrike.

Kristina continued to rub her nose. "I guess."

Caroline and Lady Ulrike exchanged an exasperated glance.

"Your
father
is not holding a grudge over the matter," pointed out Lady Ulrike.

Silence. Then, with a little sniff, Kristina took her hand away from her nose and peered up at Caroline. "And where's the Count of Narnia? I wanted to say hello to him. Congratulate him, too, for being such a hero."

Caroline had to restrain a smile. She'd finally gotten some more letters from Thorsten and had gotten
his
viewpoint on that business. Which amounted to bemusement at being told that he was a "hero" for doing something that was considerably less dangerous than any number of farm chores. Capturing a badly wounded young officer and an exhausted old one? Try tending to a lame horse, sometime.
That
critter can cave your skull in. Break a shoulder, easily. Not to mention what an ox can do to you.